Key result
The expandable mechanical heart valve design generated 98% and 8.6% higher stress, and 186% and 182% greater total deformation compared to the fixed design under closed and opened conditions.
Why the study?
Mechanical heart valves face issues with blood clotting leading to failure, and different valve designs affect structural behaviour, leaflet movement, and housing attachment.
Does an expandable mechanical heart valve housing design reduce biomechanical stress and deformation compared to a fixed design in 3-D finite element models?
Does an expandable mechanical heart valve housing design reduce biomechanical stress and deformation compared to a fixed design in 3-D finite element models?
Answers are grounded in this paper and cite their sources.
Finite element analysis demonstrates that fixed mechanical heart valve designs exhibit significantly lower stress and deformation compared to expandable designs, suggesting better structural integrity.
Heart valve replacement is a popular treatment modality for patients with valvular heart disease. One of the prominent issues of mechanical heart valve is blood clotting around the valve that could lead to operation failure. Different valve design affects the valve structural behaviour differently which could be associated to the valve leaflet movement and its attachment to the housing. This study aimed to analyse the stress and total deformation of a fixed and expandable heart valve designs under a closed and opened leaflet conditions using three-dimensional (3-D) finite element analysis (FEA). Geometrical valve models were created in SolidWorks 2020 and then exported into Ansys 2022 R2. All models were assigned with linearly elastic, isotropic, and homogenous properties. A pressure of 16 kPa was applied on the top (closed condition) and bottom (opened condition) surfaces of the leaflets. The results exhibited that the expandable design recorded about 98% and 8.6% higher stress than the fixed design under the closed and opened conditions, respectively. The expandable valve was also observed to generate approximately 186% and 182% greater total deformation compared to the fixed valve under the closed and opened conditions, respectively. Of the valve designs evaluated, the fixed valve was found to be more satisfactory. However, the expandable valve could also be of interest with relevant modifications imposed if the adverse functionality impacts are concerned.
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Hasni et al. (2023) studied Valvular heart disease (simulated mechanical heart valve replacement). Expandable bileaflet mechanical heart valve design vs. Fixed bileaflet mechanical heart valve design was evaluated on Maximum equivalent von Mises stress and total deformation. The expandable mechanical heart valve design generated 98% and 8.6% higher stress, and 186% and 182% greater total deformation compared to the fixed design under closed and opened conditions.
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